cinderella man
by marblesharp
Summary: In which the glass slipper is a diet-inducing key, the fairy godparent is a surly drunkard, the ball is an annual fight to the death, and the Cinderella is a really sad boy who dreams of colors.
1. the stepmother

AN: I hope you enjoy this excuse to make Peeta a princess and Haymitch a fairy, among other metaphorical parallels. Big thanks to Estoma for beta-ing! Chapter lengths will vary. I own nothing, including Peeta's brothers' names (at least Rye, which I think is fanon?). Please review and tell me what you think!

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**} cinderella man {**

**_perhaps there is a way to be good again._**

**1. the stepmother**

* * *

He brushes flour off his damp cheek, wincing. It almost matches the rest of his face that blanched under his mother's accusing glare (and her shouting mouth), except his nose is a heated pink from stinging until tears left clumpy gray-flaxen trails down his cheeks.

Without the flour concealing it, he can see in the bureau mirror's reflection a shining maroon welt that's so swollen there isn't even an imprint of a hand (all five fingers and a wide, unforgiving palm) like he thought there would be.

Peeta thinks he looks really sad and knows he feels really sore.

There's a curt knock on the doorjamb. His brother, Bannock, hands him a rag so he can wipe his nose and eyes (in that order) and tells him their mother isn't angry anymore.

It doesn't matter, though, because the bruise is throbbing and he still is.

"Why'd you do it, anyway?" asks the baker's oldest son. He sits down on their bed.

Peeta sniffs as he mops the rag under his nose, finding out that it's caked with flour and dried bits of dough from the bakery kitchen countertop when he accidentally inhales some of it. He coughs out, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you burnt that loaf on purpose." Peeta considers protesting but his brother continues with evidence. "You dropped it into the flames. I saw you."

"It was an accident." He's usually not bad at lying but he holds Bannock's stare a second too long.

"It sure didn't look like an accident," Bannock replies, almost laughing. "You even glanced over your shoulder at Mother."

Pointing at his cheek, Peeta retorts hysterically, "And look how well I did staying inconspicuous!"

The oldest Mellark boy does laugh now. "Just tell me why and I'll leave you to your self-pity."

Peeta glares, which actually looks more wounded than mean. "Mind your own business."

"Come on. Please?"

"No!"

There's a holler from downstairs, in the bakery. Their mother tells them to quiet down. Bannock's eyes gleam and Peeta already knows why.

"Tell me or I'll go to Mother," he threatens (bluffs). "She obviously doesn't like you burning bread on accident so if you did it on purpose…"

"All right, all right," Peeta groans. His hair is damp from the rain outside, curls sticking to his forehead. His hands, still lightly coated in flour, smell of mud and burned bread. "I gave it to Katniss Everdeen."

"Who?"

"She's this girl I like. Mother scared her off after she tried to dig through our trash. I was supposed to feed the bread to the pigs."

"Oh," is all the older boy says. What else could be said? Certainly not this: "She's Seam, then?"

Peeta's weal dims in color as his face flushes from flour white to ruddy. "Excuse you?"

Bannock holds up his palms. "Whoa, sorry. Look, I'm not saying anything bad about her. But if she's digging through our trash…"

"That's why I gave her the bread," Peeta seethes. "She's starving."

"I know!" Quieter, as he remembers their mother, "I know. You did the right thing, giving her some food." He pats the area of bed beside him. Peeta joins him. "I'm proud of you." He loops a long arm around Peeta's shoulders to prove it.

"She doesn't even know my name," Peeta says to hands twisted in his lap. "But she still was worth it." He touches 'it' and grimaces a little.

Of course, they both look into the bureau mirror at the same time and see themselves. Bannock smiles at Peeta's hunched reflection, which stares glumly back at himself. His face looks exhausted and so, _so_ sad, just like the girl he gave some food to earlier. He hopes she's smiling right now.

It's not said, but while Bannock is the mirror image of their father, not unlike their other brother Rye, Peeta resembles his father and - no one. No one he knows as family, anyway. He can't be related to the woman who dealt him, that's for sure.

Due to the newfound information concerning the facts of life learned at the age eleven, Peeta is aware how that's impossible. He just doesn't think his face could _ever_ show that much evil unless it was inherited.


	2. the carriage

**2. the carriage**

* * *

Back home, their dough is made at dawn every morning, warm and cooling as customers stroll into the bakery. Father handles the labor and Mother handles the money. Bannock apprentices their father. Rye sweeps. Pastries are frosted and specialty breads are spiced by Peeta. Every hand in the Mellark family contributes, which is nine in total because while Rye has both his hands, the left one has never really worked. Often he stuffs it as well as his shame in his pants pocket (and Peeta might never see him do that again).

Their customers buy baked goods fresh whereas Peeta and his family eat the leftovers. While Peeta has developed an acquired taste for burnt offerings from the loaf pans, his brothers and his father snack on pastries too unattractive for the display case. They are not frosted nor spiced. They're just stale.

If they themselves want to sink their teeth into the hard crust and soft innards of their own bread, they have to pay up. Peeta prefers spending his allowance on striped candies at the sweetshop. (red and white, white and yellow, yellow and green, green and blue, blue and purple, purple and orange, orange and red, on and on - he used to think the color varieties were unlimited and now misses how predictable they were.)

Peeta wonders how many hands, how much skill, how much imagination went into these dishes. The honeyed ham, cheeses, and potatoes and egg yolks fried in golden butter feel at home on his tongue whereas the steaming mugs of liquid chocolate, cakes glazed with syrup, and flaky tarts of apple (or pumpkin, or berry, or lemon, or carrot), and even the plethora of rolls are so marvelous yet alien to him.

He doesn't have a favorite yet because this is only breakfast, the very first on the train ride to the Capitol. If these wonders came from a limited mobile kitchen, what will he find in the Capitol? What else will he find there?

He can wait to get to the Capitol, thanks, but the arrival is inevitable and he's only looking forward to the resplendent meals between him and imminent death.

Peeta doesn't know if he should be worried that he automatically waves to the strange dolls swarming the station (they _are_ potential sponsors), or if the sudden stomachache is from the rich food or the towering buildings around him that glisten like candy.

Maybe he's just not used to the attention.


	3. the ball

**3. the ball**

* * *

Peeta had felt nauseous when Katniss volunteered for her little sister at the reaping. This girl whose voice even the birds quieted to hear, whose aim with a bow had kept her family alive, was now a mere tribute for the Capitol and its sick entertainment.

He'd kissed his fingers like he wanted to kiss her and raised them in the air with the rest of the crowd.

And then he was reaped as well.

It's kind of pathetic thinking the Hunger Games are his chance to finally talk to Katniss Everdeen. So Peeta thinks himself pathetic all the way through to the end.

They're on fire (no, literally) at the tribute parade. Flames look better on Katniss than they do on him; he's not the one the audience throws red, white, pink, orange, blue roses to.

He tells Caesar Flickerman as well as the entire nation on live television something he couldn't admit to his own parents, and since he never confessed his affections to Katniss herself, he can't be too upset when she pushes him into an urn afterward. Haymitch assures him the girl on fire will come around as his hands are bandaged but warns she'll take more convincing than the nation.

Peeta's not afraid of tomorrow morning. He's worried he'll fail, not exactly die. He wants to be _different_ somehow because he's never had to consider his death before but now he does, and it's disconcertingly easy if Katniss survives and that's _frightening_.

The countdown is too long. It takes him less than ten seconds to take in the arena: white-golden Cornucopia, dark green trees, short grass and compact dirt, blue choppy lake water. As his entire body tenses up, preparing to fight for someone other than himself, he's alone with his thoughts for the rest of the minute. Soon the Hunger Games will begin, and people will die, which Peeta's seen in the comfort of his home for years. Right before the gong sounds he tries to dissuade Katniss from -

A second into the Games, Peeta's already exasperated with her decision-making.

Katniss disobeys Haymitch's instructions and runs for the Cornucopia, and Peeta loves her enough to follow. He has to talk his way into the Career pack after they capture him (he killed one of their own - they're livid yet impressed), joining their alliance to protect Katniss. He mistrusts them but he'll endure their bloodlust for the time being; he likes breathing.

They find her high in a tree, weaponless, and he loves her enough not to incriminate her for dropping a tracker-jacker nest on him. He dives into the lake (he doesn't even know how to swim) and runs back to the cracked-open-eggshell nest only to find her swaying with a bow and quiver. Shoving her away, he commands her to run while trying to avoid the slash of Cato's sword, without success.

She must be showing the audience how much she cares about him, too, because they announce that district partners can win together.

She nurses his wounds in a damp, musty cave, and he (very gratefully) returns her awkward kisses and accepts the gifts they bring, floating down in silver parachutes too shiny for the artificially dark arena nights. After she drugs him to get him medicine, he's both angry and terrified yet he feels better. A foolish, hopeful part of him insists that she must love him if she's willing to risk herself for him just like he is for her.

The new rule is actually invalid, which honestly isn't much of a surprise, and she's holding out the poisonous berries - _nightlock_, she called them - and he loves her enough that he takes some of them, (seemingly) planning to put them in his mouth, chew, swallow, and die with her.

"One, two, three, go," is her plan.

"One, two, three," is his. Peeta hopes the Gamemakers intervene while he prepares to swallow them before her (because she can't die and he can), and they do.

They both win so afterward he's still the pathetic and hopeless romantic, the boy in love.

The boy with the bread.


	4. the princess

******4. the prince/ss**

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They dye his hair while grooming him for nationwide presentation. It's a faded shade of blond now, not quite ashen like it was before. He doesn't really see a difference but they assure him he looks better.

They add powder to blend his light complexion and ink to his lashes so his eyes flash under thick, black fans.

Victors need to be beautiful.

Smoothing out his handsome candlelit shirt, his stylist compliments his eyes again. Azure, like the sky before sunset. (sunset: a nice orange, maybe golden in its early stages.)

Peeta thinks about the color of sunset instead of his stylist's last instructions before airtime or home or the girl waiting on a platform next to his. He can daydream because he's always good with the cameras, yet if he thinks of the latter two, his face spreads into a goofy grin that he has to suppress and disguise as a cough.**  
**

He reaches down to scratch his kneecap through the material of the black dress pants and ends up stroking the metal brace instead. Oh, right, he doesn't have a leg there anymore. He straightens and holds his arms out to his stylist. "Got it. Well, Portia, how do I look?"

"You looked perfect until you ruffled your shirt again," she answers, laughing, pulling his arms down, and smoothing his shirt again. "Not that Katniss would mind a few creases."

He adds, "Or Panem, for that matter. They'll be too busy gazing at the girl on fire." His tone isn't bitter but proud. "You'd better go take your place now. I think the crowd is ready."

As it turns out, the creases carve into his shirt again as soon as his platform rises onto the stage and he locks eyes with Katniss (sapphire melting with silver) and they crush against each other (gold alloying with coal) and kiss for all of Panem to see.

No one minds them at all.


	5. the fairy godmother

**5. the fairy godmother**

* * *

And it was all for nothing.

His mentor, also her mentor, swallows a mouthful of tart wine (some of the Capitol's finest: the color of drying blood) before offering the mostly full bottle to Peeta.

"Haymitch, I'm sixteen," Peeta reasons as he looks into the rim, both hands clasped around the tepid neck of the bottle. He takes a tentative sip anyway, and grimaces.

"So? A broken heart knows no age," counters his mentor, appreciating his own random wisdom with a smirk. He's drunk (that wasn't his first bottle today) and Peeta suspects it's the rare, considerate part of him speaking. He's willing to share the bottle so it's not that much of a stretch.

"How old were you?" Peeta lifts up the question between them. The older man has to wrest it from his hands.

Haymitch snorts. "Older than sixteen."

An indignant retort rises in Peeta's throat but he gasps out a laugh instead. "Was your heart broken as well?"

"Of a sort," his mentor frowns, then chuckles darkly. "But if the man who can love Katniss Everdeen needs a drink, hell, I'd buy him a fucking distillery."

"Well, I'm never drinking again after this," Peeta declares between sips, trying to talk around his swollen tongue that keeps sticking to the roof of his mouth and sliding against his bluntly sharp teeth.

His mentor shrugs. "Good, more for me. You're surprisingly a lightweight, anyway."

"Starvation and a recent amputation from gangrene can do that to a fellow."

"Don't I know it. I had to watch," says Haymitch. He scratches the patchy salt-and-pepper stubble along his jaw. "I have to admit, I expected you'd be the first one to talk to me about all this, and with the girl, well, I pegged her as the first to come for a drink. You've accomplished both within the first month back."

"Congrats to me, huh?" Not laughing anymore, Peeta rocks in his seat as he passes the bottle back. His mind clouds, as do his eyes. "You must think I'm pathetic."

"I do," Haymitch answers, and at least he's being honest. "You have to remember she has the whole country fooled, though." Panem still celebrates their star-crossed romance that influenced their victory. The media has just begun to leave Peeta and Katniss alone so they can settle into the Victors' Village and, supposedly, their new lives together. Preventing the latter is the girl on fire herself.

"But it was my strategy. I shouldn't have forced her to play along, to pretend to fall in love with me."

Shaking his head, the older victor negates him, "No, you did what you had to do for her to win - and you got to live as a bonus. Not seeing the downside here."

They sit in silence for a while, the wine bottle passed between them. Peeta says, "I honestly thought she loved me."

Haymitch, somehow lucid, is quick to reply. "Then Panem did as well. So you're alive." His eyes are silver. Peeta smiles up at them, still sad but also a bit drunk.

He decides he likes his mentor and dislikes his alcohol. (he doesn't hate it because he understands why he needs it and besides, he could never hate something.)


	6. the shoe

AN: About halfway through, with thirteen parts! I'd love to hear your thoughts so far.

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**6. the shoe**

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A brass key gleams dully on top of the bureau in his new bedroom. Peeta left it there as he was unpacking. Only he had moved to the Victors' Village, and he was no longer under any obligation to work for a business he wouldn't, and didn't need to, inherit. It was his token in the arena, something to remind him of home.

While tears leaked from his freshly reaped face, brought about by his mother's parting words (basically, he was already considered dead), Peeta held out his hand as his father's hovered above it. He recognized the key as it bounced onto his palm.

"The key to the dessert display case?" Peeta had asked, one gray-flaxen eyebrow raised.

His father smiled. "It's time for your brothers and I to go on a diet. This way, we'll have no reason to be tempted by old biscuits."

Peeta laughed disbelievingly, "What if customers want to buy them? You'll have no way of getting them out until… after the Games." They both knew the key would return to the baker in some way, slid over the counter with a smile or pried from Peeta's dead, blue-white hands.

"You'd better win quickly, then. Though people prefer my bread over my desserts, anyway. You've always been the better froster." His father's wink was playful but his eyes, aged with a shrewd maturity that Peeta's match now, pinched with sorrow. "Goodbye, son. Good luck."

Luckily, Peeta won so the bakery did not go out of business (but it blew up a little more than a year later, the Mellark family - minus Peeta - still inside). They could even afford a better display case with his victory spoils.

It's impossible to start a rebellion with an old brass key. But the owner of a golden token, a mockingjay pin, ignites Panem. He really does love her.

Because no fire can grow into an inferno without crumbling some logs, they are sent back into the arena, the reaping of victors instead of district children. Katniss has the same pin as last year while Peeta has the same goal: Katniss' survival.

His token this year is a dark gold locket engraved with her symbol, the smiling faces of her reasons to live inside.

Peeta leaves it behind in the arena for Katniss to escape with. They're both among other victor-tributes. Katniss is with the rebels. Peeta is not so lucky.

Self-preservation wasn't a priority, anyway.


	7. the reversal

**7. the reversal**

* * *

Peeta loves Katniss Everdeen.

He isn't certain that Katniss Everdeen loves him back. Their relationship was complicated after their first Hunger Games and they just survived another so he honestly doesn't know what they are to each other anymore. But she doesn't hate him, does she?

That's what the president just told him. Peeta doubts he should believe anything President Snow says for a reason he almost realizes through his bleary confusion before the Capitol doctor returns and his thoughts become... jumbled.

The prick of a syringe causes Peeta to flinch. His skin is too numb to register the minor pain of injection. He just didn't expect to see an instrument so small and breakable among the other ones.

He sees recaps of their fabricated romance, and it's so, _so_ obvious Katniss Everdeen hates him; she tried to kill him. Peeta cannot believe he didn't realize before that she was manipulating him the entire time, even offscreen.

His distorted reflection on the tiles is flour-white, and sweat drips off his hair like he was out in the rain. He thinks he looks really sad. Something (like a rolling pin) clouts his face, welting and maybe even shattering his cheek.

"Her fault. You hear that? All her fault. She did that to you." Is the Capitol doctor telling him that for his own good?

Katniss Everdeen killed his family. She killed his father, and his mother, and his brothers because she hates him. She hates him so much.

The girl on fire set his district, his home, aflame. While she was on fire once, too, she's - _not human_ so she didn't burn like people, like bread. (with a backwards glance, she threw in one, he threw the other, and both charred black in the bright, hot flames yet only Peeta was punished.)

Peeta mumbles, "It was an accident. I'm sorry, Mother. Please... was only an accident..."

"Shut up," spits the doctor. A second welt (this hour). "Katniss Everdeen hurt you! She did everything." Peeta wishes he'd _stop_.

Despite his delirium, he understands everything so much better now.

Peeta loved Katniss Everdeen. Now he hates her.

And he's angry, so angry with everyone.

As venom-induced shadows swallow him whole, Peeta rasps shakily, "It was only a little fire."

Why can't he hear screaming in the cell next to his anymore?


	8. the kiss

AN: Not an actual Cinderella ref... but what's a fairy tale without a victory kiss? This is more of Peeta's gradual recovery leading up to that kiss, though.

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******8. the kiss**

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While they keep assuring him otherwise now that he's been rescued, Peeta can't feel safe as Katniss Everdeen roams outside his hospital room, a monster no one tries to capture despite his pleas.

He doesn't just hate her - he's terrified of her, too. Yet sometimes she looks just as sad and disoriented as he does, and a kind of familiar pity stirs within him. For some reason, he wants her to smile. He also really wants her to die.

Remember how he understood everything? Now it's all confusing again. However, he doesn't admit to the doctors that he's mostly frustrated with himself because he doubts they'd understand. He doesn't understand himself. Peeta doesn't know what's real and what's a fairy tale fabricated or stretched by the Capitol or by Katniss anymore.

Without a doubt, he mistrusts the Capitol. He is almost certain Katniss does as well or else she wouldn't be working with the rebels, so they must share some common ground. But then Peeta remembers how often Katniss manipulated him and worries she's betraying them by smuggling information for the Capitol. Even though the Thirteen doctors are much nicer than the ones he met in the Capitol during his imprisonment, they just drug him and ignore him whenever he expresses this concern.

Katniss' sister Prim starts showing him the same recaps he saw so many times in the Capitol. She stands on a chair to insert the tapes into the television, switches off the light, and stands by him as they both watch with glossy azure eyes. Peeta's sedated whenever they get to a part where he responds chaotically. After numerous failures, he's able to watch himself and Katniss in both their Hunger Games with discomfort average to any victor.

Haymitch, who's jaundiced and haggard from the absence of alcohol here, is trying his "fucking _damnedest_" to help him piece questions and answers together. He must not trust either side as well. Then again, Haymitch doesn't trust people much in general. Peeta had trouble convincing him that Katniss Everdeen was a mutt before, though now he can tell Haymitch is upset with her about something else.

Peeta still holds some resentment towards his mentor for not telling him about the plans for the arena breakout and the rebellion - then he'll see Haymitch tremble and hold his head in his hands when he thinks Peeta's sleeping, and it becomes very difficult to think anything mean about him. Once he wakes from a nightmare to find the older man asleep in a chair at his bedside (a cautionary distance away, of course). Peeta covers him with his sheet, lies back down, and dreams with his eyes open, using the blank ceiling as a canvas. The nurses give him glowing reports the next morning; he's improving.

President Coin visits him, then. To Peeta, she's the epitome of colorless: dull starched suit, flat gunmetal hair, matte lips that only turn upward a little when he asks her why she's here. In an assertive, firm voice, she tells him he's being sent to fight with "the Mockingjay". They're going to overtake the Capitol together, except not really because it's all a show.

Peeta's just sick of all the lies.

He's really confused and he hates war.

He's really confused and he hates fighting a war alongside Katniss Everdeen, the Mockingjay. What's he?

He likes to believe, somewhere, he is still the boy with the bread. It's the only part of him Katniss seems to love.

Apparently, he still is as she kisses him during an anxious lull in battle. "Don't let him take you from me. Stay with me!" She looks at him like he's good. Gray never looked so alarmingly beautiful.

"Always." Strained or not, he says it.


	9. the midnight toll

******9. the midnight toll**

* * *

They've both given the Capitol enough reasons to hate them, and Katniss was not the only District Twelve tribute on fire.

The silver parachutes they had received in exchange for kisses (and love) almost blend in with the pale winter sky as they float down toward the trampled gray snow. Peeta suspects they are a sign that the Capitol knows he and Katniss are near, that they can find them, that they're in the arena forever - until they detonate in a group of children.

Peeta hears and even feels the bomb blast twice within minutes, each set so perfectly synchronized.

Somewhere in the chaotic aftermath, he lost sight of Katniss, who was way ahead of him, closer to the explosions. His muscles betray him; he freezes when he wants to run and find her.

The fire comes toward him (the fire is people).

A boy about his age staggers and flails as the back of his coat blazes. Crashing into Peeta before Peeta can even help him, the boy's flaming arm swings and knocks him across the face.

It burns, bad.

An eternal weal twists across his forehead and down his left temple to part of his cheek: a reminder of his childhood that ended years ago. The angry, blistered streaks on his arms from frantically tearing off the boy's coat may as well be oven burns. All he needs is two charred loaves to complete the throwback.

He learns afterward (after the revolution, he's hesitant to think) that the bombs that caught him and Katniss took out Prim as well. She was a medic. He should be glad: the death of his family for Katniss'. Instead, Peeta grieves for the little girl who grew up to be just like her sister (the girl on fire - how cruelly poetic) and actually makes an effort to speak to his new therapist. He recovers - for Prim.

His family can be avenged when the next and final Games is proposed, by President Coin, to the surviving victors. Children from the Capitol will be reaped. What would his family want? Peeta doesn't regard his mother. He votes no.

Katniss votes yes, for Prim, as does Haymitch.

As the victor-voters disperse, he grabs one of them. "Why did you-?" he starts, but Haymitch pulls his arm, therefore Peeta, towards himself.

"She knows what she's doing," he says into Peeta's ear. "Just wait and watch the show."

He does, and in one shot Panem has lost two presidents: Snow chokes on his blood while he laughs at the arrow jutting out of Coin's heart.

Peeta is relieved to reach Katniss before the converging crowd. The skin grafts on her neck tear as she strains to reach a small shoulder pocket attached to her uniform, in it her death. She bites his hand instead.

She can't defy authority using nightlock again without him. So she won't at all.

"Let me go!" Katniss shrieks as he prevents her from swallowing the suicide pills.

"I can't." But eventually he has to because the guards surround the assassin and carry her off. Others lead him away, away from the frenzied crowd and two dead leaders.

Peeta searches for Haymitch as he's ushered to safety, inside the Presidential Mansion. "What happens now?" he asks him after finding him among the rows of columns that line the grand foyer.

"Well, now the girl's a criminal so we'll probably be staying here a little while longer for the trial."

"Trial?" Peeta spits the word. "She just saved Panem from another tyrant - and - and another Hunger Games!"

Haymitch laughs (laughs!) and Peeta notices how tired he looks. "Yeah, well." The older victor shrugs, crossing his arms and leaning against a marble column. "You'll learn assassins don't get away with much when we've just renewed the government. As of this very moment, Panem has no leader. All because of the Mockingjay."

It's then when Peeta realizes how much he loves Katniss (not the girl in the rain or the girl on fire or the Mockingjay but _Katniss_) and how afraid he is of what she will have to face alone, broken and all alone.

He can't even help her because he's in the same condition.


	10. the hazel tree

AN: This is the longest chapter - sorry if it's a drastic change from the norm, I got carried away. Also, just to avoid some confusion, the hazel tree is a reference to the Grimm Brothers' tale but the connection is to a literal tree in this chapter. Again, thanks so much for the support!

* * *

******10. the hazel tree**

* * *

As soon as he gets off the train, Peeta heads toward his house in the Victors' Village, which was spared from the firebombing (that Katniss did not cause... intentionally). He doesn't want to pass anything that could upset him, like ashes of dead people or actual dead people. The spring air _is_ somewhat ashy. He hurries along.

The first thing he notices is that his house is still clean, though dusty. He sees the telephone and remembers his therapist telling him before he left the Capitol hospital that, while they'll have sessions every afternoon, Peeta is welcome to call whenever he feels confused, anxious, paranoid, angry - anything at all that doesn't feel safe.

With that in mind, he needs a distraction, and he isn't ready to face his easel and paint set yet.

All of the ingredients are exactly where he left them in his modest pantry. Peeta pours flour from a canister he had to unseal into a large bowl. The sink faucet chokes out dark water when he turns it on. He lets the water run through the pipes for a couple of minutes before adding it to the flour. As he waits, he throws out any moldy food in his pantry and icebox. What he has left is just enough to make basic white bread. He may be the new district baker for a while.

While the dough rises, he steps outside again and surveys the neighborhood from his porch. Only three houses were filled when he left for the Hunger Games a second time, and now most of them have their windows open, their lights on - and their doors unlocked.

Peeta shudders, his breath rattling.

He could walk into them right now, right into the houses they did not kill to earn, and he'd make these new neighbors earn them. They could kill him if they fought back. They'd have to or else he'd kill them.

A muscle in his neck pops as he shakes his head vigorously. He isn't sure if he says, "no" aloud to himself or not.

Katniss' house looks dead, that's for sure. He may have to change that (or make it true - NO).

After sliding the loaf pans into the oven, Peeta trudges down to the end of the street, toward the edge of forest that surrounds (isolates) the Victors' Village. Nestled in a little alcove of trees are wildflowers, some not yet bloomed with pale petals, faded gold suns in their centers. The Village's gardeners had left them alone. (because no one can harm a primrose, right?)

He hopes Katniss likes them as he plants them around her house. She does, and he's so glad, though she is still cautious of him.

"You're back," she says, hesitating. Peeta notices that she looks disheveled and exhausted (and really sad) but doesn't say anything. He can't even look at his own reflection without thinking of a corpse.

But Katniss is right: he's back.

It's not until the baked bread is cooling on the stove when someone actually welcomes him home.

Haymitch burns his fingers trying to tear off the heel of a loaf, and Peeta wryly acknowledges that all of three of them have been burned now. He takes out a knife and cuts a piece off for both of them.

"I saw Katniss." Peeta tries to control his voice. "She looks like you haven't been with her."

Haymitch sighs because there's already too many things he has to apologize for. They didn't talk in Thirteen or in the Capitol as much as Peeta wanted to. "You been down to the-?"

"Can we please not talk about that?"

Another sigh. "Whenever you're ready." Whether he's sarcastic or not, Peeta nods thanks. They eat in silence.

Then, "My family is dead." All at once he feels assured yet horrified by the statement, as if saying it aloud to someone who didn't have a medical degree or any intent to change him makes it official (real). Though Peeta isn't entirely certain why he's telling Haymitch, somehow he can still trust the man.

Haymitch looks at him for a long time, arms folded on the table. In a distant voice, he says, "I'll tell you about mine if you tell me about yours."

Tucking his chin in his neck, Peeta mutters, "What will that do?"

"It won't make you the only person who remembers them." He waits until Peeta shrugs as if to say 'go on', then tells him about how his mother taught him to sew him and his little brother's clothes because they tore the knees in their trousers and their shirt sleeves too much for her liking.

"Hard to believe you can sew," Peeta teases with a smile.

The older man shrugs, indifferent. "Proved to be valuable in the arena, and even after. Just don't start giving me your ripped underwear or whatever and expect me to fix it."

"Noted." He makes a face at the prospect.

"But anyway," Haymitch continues, "I think she liked teaching me because she was passing down something of hers, something that would help me out later. So," he finishes his bread, "now I'm passing it right along down to you, and you have to tell me something now."

Brow furrowed, Peeta thinks about his own family. What can he say? How can he describe them, how much he loves them and missed them and how much he hates his mother, without causing an episode or dwelling on the fact that they're dead?

He remembers the apple tree in his backyard, and it actually hurts, thinking about everything that happened around it. Haymitch must notice; he hooks an arm around him, and the memory of his brother Bannock is wrenching.

Katniss had been stooped there the night he burned the bread on purpose to give it to her. Peeta decides to omit this, though, because it's too risky (unsafe) and Haymitch probably already knows, anyway.

Rye had his first date there, a picnic under the apple blossoms.

His mother would hand Peeta and his brothers baskets and send them out to pick apples for certain desserts. They'd almost always sneak at least one for themselves, unless she was watching from the back window.

They found a kitten there once. It was a scrawny thing with matted fur and scared, bewildered yellow eyes, too young to try to fight or run away when Rye scooped it up with his good hand. It looked sad, too. All they could do was pour a puddle of milk in front of it and lope back inside before the carton was discovered missing.

Before leaving, Peeta had scratched between its ears. "You'll find a home soon, little pal. We aren't allowed to keep you, is all. You'd be put to work for sure." He had chuckled and then frowned, thinking of how all he could do for this dying creature was offer a bit of sustenance, just once, and hope for the best.

The memory is enough that he can think of Katniss, helping her, and - his shoulders, taught with anticipation, relax. He still feels very calm recounting the story to Haymitch.

Of course, Haymitch cringes and shakes his head. "Dying kittens? Damn. Next time, try not to pick something so fucking depressing." Slightly disappointed that he didn't recognize the connection, Peeta just appreciates that there's a next time. "We'll talk more about our families. It'll take some time but we will. And that," he pauses, rolling his eyes a bit, "_kitten_ appreciated the food and all, but I think it needs company now."

Peeta reaches out and embraces him. "Thank you," says Peeta, after shyly pulling away. "For, um, everything."

Haymitch is quiet as he starts to leave. "Glad you're back." It's muttered and gruff, and whatever moment that just happened between them has passed, and Peeta hadn't been expecting anything else.

He really does appreciate his mentor, his friend.


	11. the cat

AN: A very short chapter and an epilogue are left. I'll post both on Friday to end things neatly.

* * *

******11. the cat**

* * *

With the excuse of bringing bread, Peeta visits Katniss more often, and one evening arrives to see her sitting on her porch with Buttercup, rubbing his fluffy chest.

He's glad to see the cat is still alive even though they got off to a bad start. Buttercup used to sit on Peeta's porch and hiss at him while he strolled up the walk to his house, as if Peeta wasn't welcome anywhere. Whenever he unlocked the front door, he'd always expect a hiss. The neighborhood was silent and cat-less when he returned home from the Capitol, and he found he kind of missed the routine of it.

Prim once told him that Katniss and Buttercup hated each other but ever since Katniss had come home a victor they'd been something like allies. He could understand why the tomcat was so aggressive toward him, then. Katniss has quite a tendency of developing strong alliances. She and Peeta weren't exactly allies back then.

Peeta thinks of that as he sits with her. He's pretty sure they're more than allies now. She hasn't run away in terror yet, anyway.

Buttercup stretches between them and nuzzles his thigh. "Glad you found a home," ventures Peeta. "Forgive me yet?" The cat purrs underneath his hand. Peeta can tell Katniss is staring at him.

"I'd say he does," she answers, "though I don't know what happened."

"Just something that's in the past now."

They consider each other. Both are far from healed yet they've been stripped bare to their most raw identities. There are no more lies, no more strategies, scripts - they're real. They've lost so much and come so far together. Peeta knows that their sorrows will remain yet fade with time and growth (and love).

He knows he's ready to love Katniss Everdeen for who she is, not for some fairy tale version of her.

Katniss looks out over the yard, and Peeta detects the slightest sigh alleviating her chest. Her lips tug into a very small smile. "Dandelions are popping up. Can't tell you how glad I am; I thought I'd never see one again."

He admires the patches of bright, sunny yellow fluff scattered around all of the yards with her. "They should complement the primrose blossoms nicely." The dormant primroses wave at them in the breeze.

She leans into him a bit, murmurs, "You know, they've always given me hope - because of what you did for me that night." As she shakes her head at the memory, Peeta also remembers how gaunt Katniss had been, lurched over the trashcan like she'd faint any second. Withholding the burnt loaves would've been a crime.

Shaking his head, Peeta frowns at her. "That was years ago. We're not those kids anymore, Katniss."

Katniss meets his eyes with ease. "Thank goodness; I'd still be starving and you'd still be with your mother."

He nods (almost) with reluctance. "Once the primroses bloom, I'll rebuild the bakery." A current of wind blows across him, and he just knows it's the right thing to do.

"And then you'll ice cookies to match the flowers." Katniss is laying her head on his shoulder, grinning.

"Of course," he tells her.

He's already thinking of their colors come summer.


	12. the kingdom

******12. the kingdom**

* * *

Outside, Panem heals. The newly elected president and district representatives all vow a lot of things that the worn people of Panem just have to trust won't lead back to before. Given their past, they'd have to do quite a lot to return to that time (nothing is taken for granted, though).

There is one matter that will hopefully always remain obvious: the Hunger Games are now only history.


	13. the happily ever after

******13. the happily ever after**

* * *

Peeta Mellark bakes and paints to keep away nightmares and monsters (and his own deranged self), having already shelved his beloved memories. He also likes to garden. He plants dull seeds and, with care, grows color.

Sweat has dampened his flour-colored hair, and his azure eyes smart a little from the pollen. Dirt covers the burn scars on his forearms (some he can't tell whether they're from the bombs or the oven, and he loves that).

He's absently smiling down at his plants and the dandelions around them, the latter growing despite inattention. Katniss never picks them so neither does he.

Where Katniss kissed him on his cheek before heading for the forest with her bow and quiver feels puckered and hot (it's badly sunburned), tingling.

_Happy._

He thinks it's a good look for him.

* * *

AN: I really appreciate all the support and feedback. Hope you enjoyed!


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